


Pack Street: Drastic Measures

by MisterEAnon



Category: Pack Street - Fandom, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lies, Promises, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9601934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterEAnon/pseuds/MisterEAnon
Summary: A direct sequel to Pack Street: Savages. Spoilers, of course.Charlie writes one last note and opens her last bottle of pills.(( I usually write happy stories. This isn't one of them. Check the tags and decide if you WANT to read this one. ))





	

_To my friends, and_

 

I paused, lifting the pen from the paper as I glanced out the window. Cormo was out there, leaving with Anneke. It was kind of him to stay for as long as he had. He couldn't understand, but it was kind.

 

It wasn't enough. Drastic problems required drastic solutions.

 

Even as I turned back, pen scrawling messily, I wasn't thinking about the words. I was thinking about the reality of the situation.

 

Pandora… She was a pillar of the community. She was the friendliest, most positive person I knew, and could always scrounge up a side job for me, if I needed it. She was one of the best people on Pack Street, full stop, and one of very few people I trusted as a friend.

 

My best friend. And then she'd died and been replaced by a savage creature wearing her skin and her claws and--

 

It shouldn't have been her. It should have been me.

 

It should have been me.

 

I tapped the pen into the page, marking down the final period, and dropped it, not caring that it rolled right off the desk. I glanced down at my arm, noticing my sweater was covering the item of my focus.

 

I drew the sleeve back, freeing the bottle of pills from underneath, and squinting slightly more than usual, frowning at the childproof cap.

 

It should have been me. But since it wasn't, I was going to make sure it never was. I never wanted to die, only to have a monster bubble up from inside me, under my skin, to hurt everyone I cared about.

 

It was better to die on my own terms, and slay the monster before it woke.

 

I stared forward at the wall ahead of me, not really seeing it. My paws shook as I struggled to get the bottle open. I couldn't even begin to categorize how I was feeling. Grief, yes. Anxiety, of course.

 

But mostly, I felt hollow. Like I was dead inside already, and this was just going to seal the deal.

 

Little blue pills. Recommended dosage, two daily. This was a full bottle, and I wasn't going to stop at two.

 

I had just unlocked the cap when I heard something just behind me, ears swiveling. I glanced back, but the only thing behind me was the open door.

 

I had just looked back when he pounced, startling me as the bottle was smacked from my hand, my suicide note pulled with him to the floor as he jumped off the table and picked the pills up from the floor.

 

For a few moments, neither of us said anything. Weariness settled in my bones as I looked down at him, and he stared at the fallen note for a few long seconds before looking up at me, bottle clutched in both paws.

 

“…You weren't supposed to see this.” I informed my roommate, knowing it was obvious. I just didn't have anything else to say.

 

“Yeah, well I DID,” he retorted, voice hitching into a near shout at the end. I could hear the stress in his voice, the anxiety. He always did have volume control issues when he was emotional. For a moment, I thought he might cry, and saw his ears had gone down, flattened against his head.

 

I dimly realized mine were, too, and wondered how long they had been that way.

 

I leaned forward, hunching down until my face was hanging right in front of his. I scowled, feeling dark and confrontational now. “I can't turn into that,” I told him firmly. I didn't clarify what I meant. I didn't have to.

 

“You WON'T.” Marty argued, standing his ground in front of me. His ears remained lowered, but he held his paw up as if he was debating. Old habits.

 

“You don't know that,” I retorted. “It's in me. It's in all of us.”

 

I hated it. “Can't run.”

 

I hated what it would make me. “Only one escape.”

 

I wished there was a way around it. This wasn't like other things. Other things, I could plan about. I could learn. I could work around. I knew everything I had to about what lurked under the fur of a predator, and there was no weaseling out of it.

 

The stoat in front of me clutched his paws to his chest. I noticed he wasn't holding the pills- I had forgotten about them. He'd dropped the bottle on the floor, and was ignoring it as he stared at my face. His lips pulled into a worried frown. “So what, you're just gonna check out on us? Just like that, huh?”

 

My breath caught, and I blinked, feeling my throat tense up. He must have noticed, because he kept talking. “Charlie, listen to me. You're not gonna turn. And I do know that.”

 

He took a deep breath, talking a little louder. Enunciating a little more clearly. I could hear the raw emotion in his voice, the worry. “Nobody else is going to turn. Nobody else is going to be hurt,” he promised me.

 

Abruptly, I pulled away, turning my back on him to stare at the wall. I slouched forward, leaning on the desk in front of me as I folded my arms. “Even if you're right, world could use one less thieving fox,” I muttered, my own voice thick now as well. “No one would miss one.”

 

I didn't look, but I heard it as he hopped up onto the desk beside me, and I felt it as he put both paws on my arm. “ **I** would miss you,” he retorted, shaking my arm.

 

I turned. For the first time in a long time, I opened my eyes all the way, meeting his own. I wondered if he remembered what my eyes actually looked like, before this.

 

I wondered if I did.

 

Marty leaned forward, putting his arm on my chest. “ **I** would miss you,” he repeated. This time, though, I knew it meant more. He was telling me more than just words.

 

He was giving me a promise. Baring his feelings to me, and showing me the entire truth of our relationship in four simple words.

 

Maybe it was because I finally had my eyes open, but I felt like I was seeing more in Marty then I usually could.

 

I sighed. I was tired. So, so tired. “Alright.”

 

My roommate sighed as well, though his sounded far more relieved. “Alright. _Alright_. God, I don't…” He shook his head. “I don't even know what to do, Charlie. I think- I think I better go get Al. Maybe have him talk to his girlfriend about it.”

 

I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to speak around the sudden lump in my throat. He leaned in for a hug, which I accepted, easily wrapping my arms around his entire body and clutching him to my chest.

 

We stayed together like that for a long moment before I let him go. He pulled away slowly, turning to head for the door. He only looked back once he reached it, ears rising just a little. “You coming?”

 

I contemplated for a moment, before bending down and picking up my suicide note, balling it up in my paws. “I'll catch up. And… Marty.”

 

He paused, and I took a breath. “I care about you. A lot. You know that, right?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I know that,” he murmured. “I'll be back soon. You just sit tight, okay? I'll be back,” he promised, closing the door behind him.

 

He sounded shaken, like he wasn't quite thinking. He'd probably think better of himself and come back soon.

 

He'd been making a lot of promises today.

 

I hadn't.

 

I carefully un-balled the note in my claws, setting it on the table and smoothing it out as much as possible. I chuckled self-deprecatingly. That's what he got for trusting a shifty fox, of course.

 

That was just my nature. Had to be my nature. Because we couldn't change who we are inside.

 

I picked the bottle of pills up off the floor. “I care about you, Marty,” I announced quietly to the empty room. “I couldn't hurt you.”

 

I popped the top off, letting the lid fall to the floor. “I **won't** hurt you. Never again.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Before writing this, I wrote another charlie-commits-suicide fic here. http://pastebin.com/3fReR3a0
> 
> This fic has her end the possibility of her going savage. That fic shows what could have happened if she hadn't.


End file.
